It had been a simple patrol. The night quiet and peaceful. All except Mikey. Leaping from spot to spot, tormenting Raph. Leo had been perched at the edge of the rooftop. He was thinking, focusing on something that would end in one of us getting our shells shellacked.
But I didn't question him, nobody did. We thought we'd all go home in one piece, all four pieces of the puzzle undamaged. That's when the shuriken embedded in the concrete beside my foot. I had spun on my heels, bo staff at the ready.
At least fifty Foot ninjas stared us down. Leo wasted no time in telling us to run, the odds weren't in our favor. The last thing I saw before me and Leo bolted down an alley was Mikey and Raph fleeing across the rooftop. Raph leading our baby brother.
It'd be the last time I saw him. Alive anyways. My immediate older brother would die in my only younger brothers hands that night. At the time I didn't know that, otherwise I would've braced all fifty foot ninjas alone to save them.
I would have gone through the most soul breaking tortures know to mankind in order to save my family, but it wasn't enough. Life was a sick sadistic bastard that fed off of our hopes and beliefs, and tonight he took so much from us.
He'd taken my Mikey's hope. Replaced it with a fire that rivaled our now dead brothers.
He'd taken my belief that I could keep us all together. What a fool I had been. Why couldn't I save him?! Was I just a pawn in his game chess? I wanted to save him, go back in time and warn myself.
But I couldn't. It was Raphs time, his essence set free into the unknown universe. Mikey'd watch, making ever moment of Raphs final time special. I don't know what really happened. Mikey wont say a word about it. He just keeps mumbling something about being forever young.
I can only imagine they had mortally wounded Raph while Mikey hid away in the shadows, waiting for his opportunity to cradle our now dead brother. I wish now it had been me, the one to watch Raphael die, to see his amber eyes close for the final time.
Mikey's paralyzed from the stress of the situation. He just lays in Raphs hammock, rocking back and forth talking about him being forever young. I wish I knew what it meant, were they Raphs final words? My curiosity was at an all time high, but I had my job and memories to get back to.
Raphs dead corpse lay on a cot in my lab. Nearly the same position Leo and I had found him in, minus the clinging younger brother on his side. It hadn't occurred to them Raph was dead. Leo had just walked up and asked Raphael what had happened. Mikey had only cried harder.
The silence was sickening. It wasn't until then did we hear Mikeys pleas and see Raphs eyes were closed for the final time. Leo had to pry our maskless baby brother off of Raph, and only then did we see the wound. The reason we had lost our brother.
He had been impaled by something, leaving a gaping hole on the lower left side of his plastron. A hunk of his plastron and shell were gone. Mikey must've pulled whatever it was out. We tried asking him, calling his name in order to get some response from him. He only stared at us, like we were crazy, mad men from another planet.
Sorrow wasn't the only thing that reflected from his baby blue eyes. Anger. Hatred. It'd be a long time before we had a shadow of our old Mikey back. If it had been me or Leo, he'd be trying to cheer us up. Instead I was watching his emotions eat him from the inside out.
Why hadn't I been there? This wasn't something our youngest should be going through alone. I should've gone with Raph, spared Mikey all this pain and turmoil. The way he shook, his random shrieks, the orange turned red mask he wrapped around his hand were all reminders I had failed him.
